One of our clients went with a card-based approach (http://purelyapp.com). The reasons were: - People understand them. The separation and spacing lead to very little cognitive overhead. - Perfect for responsive layouts, and translate easily to native mobile devices. - Forces you to discriminate ...
Do both. Verify but continue to let them use the site in a limited capacity or even better have a message at the top reminding them to verify as they use the site. Keeping the message up will drive the right people to verify and the wrong people to continue to not verify.
I would reach out directly, especially to some of the gaming companies who have got this process down to a fine art. Network on LinkedIn and you'll be surprised how helpful some of these folks will be, especially in the nordics where there is a very open culture of sharing , even in some of the b...